Deep Drill Moratorium Lifted, Clean Energy Progresses, No Change at Top of IPCC

A week after the Obama administration lifted the temporary ban on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a group of oil executives yesterday appeared at a forum in Houston at the South Texas College of Law to explain how an essentially unregulated industry was contending with the government’s new rules. The short course: Executives said they were managing.

“It’s anxious times in industry,” Gary Luquette, president of Chevron Corp.’s North American exploration and production business, told the Houston Chronicle. “But I think there’s a little bit more optimism today than last week.”

In the months since the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in the Gulf in April, releasing a torrent of oil, Americans have come to understand that deep-sea energy exploration rivals the U.S. moon mission for technological adventurism, and the Internet for business expansion. In 1989, oil from wells drilled in water more than 1,000 feet deep accounted for 4 percent of all Gulf production, according to the Interior Department. When the BP disaster occurred deep sea wells accounted for 80 percent of Gulf oil production, or about 1.35 million barrels a day. The prolific deep Gulf wells, some probing for oil in waters 7,500 feet deep, are a big reason that U.S. crude production is increasing for the first time in more than 30 years.

Since April, Americans also learned that the offshore Gulf industry was essentially unmonitored. You’ll recall that three weeks before the BP Gulf disaster President Obama called for more offshore drilling, asserting that the practice safe. On May 27, the Interior Department ordered the halt of exploratory drilling on 33 deep-water rigs and banned new permits to drill in water deeper than 500 feet for the next six months. The administration also dismantled the old Minerals Management Service, the Interior Department unit that was charged with oversight, and established a new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Response. Among its new rules are requiring independent certification of a well’s blowout preventer, and new workplace standards aimed at reducing human and organizational errors. Operators must certify that the drilling rigs meet updated safety rules, and companies must prove they have access to enough spill-containment equipment to respond to a “worst case discharge” of a well.

Chevron is expected to be among the first big companies submitting applications to resume deep-water exploration. Michael Bromwich, head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, predicted the first new permits could be approved before the end of the year.

Even as it opened new fossil fuel energy exploration, the administration this month also is fostering clean energy development. On Wednesday last week Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the 50-megawatt Silver State Solar Project for Clark County, Nevada. The agency also approved three large solar power projects in California ― the first ever sited on Federal land.

According to the American Solar Energy Society, the California developments are the 709-MW Tessera Stirling dish project in Imperial County, the 370-MW BrightSource power-tower project in the Ivanpah Valley, and Chevron Energy’s 45-MW Lucerne Valley photovoltaic project in San Bernardino County. Together the new projects, financed in part by the 2009 stimulus bill, will produce 1,200 MW of carbon-neutral electric power for the Las Vegas and Southern California markets. “

In other news of the week, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the organization of global scientists that produced the comprehensive 2007 report on climate warming, decided at its meeting in South Korea on Thursday to retain Rajendra Pachauri as its chairman. “I have every intention of staying right until I’ve completed the mission that I’ve accepted to carry out—namely, the completion of the Fifth Assessment Report in 2014,” Pachauri told a news conference.

Until next week, take care, Keith Schneider

Defend the Clean Air Act

While your representatives are campaigning in their districts over the next few weeks, be sure to ask them to sign Rep. Ellison’s dear colleague letter supporting the EPA’s proposed boiler MACT rule and Rep. Quigley’s dear colleague letter to the EPA on coal ash. Equally important is continuing to urge your Senators to vote against any amendment or bill that would delay EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. For a more complete list of the many opportunities this fall to defend and improve the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act, visit the take action tabs on the USCAN Clean Air Act webpages or contact Jennifer Kurz at jkurz@climatenetwork.org.

Events

October 21: Shaping a Low-Carbon World: Lessons from Nordic Countries

Federal Task Force Releases Report on Climate Change Adaptation

On October 14, the Climate Change Adaptation Task Force released an inter-agency report outlining how federal agencies can better prepare the United States to respond to the impacts of climate change. “The Federal Government has an important and unique role in climate adaptation, but it is only one part of a broader effort that must include multiple levels of government and private and non-governmental partners throughout the country. In particular, Federal leadership, guidance, information, and support are vital to planning for and implementing adaptive actions,” according to the report. The Task Force is co-chaired by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report recommends that federal agencies make climate change adaptation a standard part of agency planning. Another recommendation is to align federal adaptation efforts across jurisdictions to better address issues like threatened water resources and public health. The Task Force will release a progress report in October 2011 to document how federal agencies adopted the adaptation strategies outlined in the October 2010 report.

On October 12, Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions released a new report that analyzed the best way for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act. The report examined the potential legal and economic challenges EPA could face during its efforts and suggested that the Clean Air Act’s New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) is the most practical way of regulating GHG emissions under existing law. Under the NSPS provisions, EPA could create an emissions trading scheme similar to ones proposed in Congress this year. According to the report, this would help the administration strike deals with industry groups and avert certain legal challenges. To avoid severe political kickback, lead author Dr. Tim Profeta said the EPA should “use its authority in a way that harvests some of the political compromise, which has occurred in the legislative debate.” Thus far, EPA has only used the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act to regulate GHG emissions from large facilities like power plants and factories.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Announces Grants for Local Climate Change Studies

On October 12, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the recipients of $5.25 million in funding for city and state programs to study the effects of climate change on public health. The studies will analyze various scenarios ranging from heat-related illnesses to higher prevalence of waterborne disease caused by flooding. The grant recipients are Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, New York City and San Fransisco. One project is the study of how hotter summers impact the health of Michigan residents. According to CDC, “more frequent extreme heat events are of particular concern for the Michigan Department of Community Health. In the last 20 years the number of days Detroit residents swelter in temperatures exceeding 90 degrees has doubled.” The CDC grants are intended to help local city and state health departments plan climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

On October 13, UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres said that to make progress at December’s climate talks in Cancun, nations must first clarify their pledges to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Figueres’ comments had a sense of urgency following the stalled Tianjin climate talks in early October. Frustrated with the slow multilateral process, larger nations may turn to smaller scale agreements among wealthier countries. However, Figueres believes that such efforts by alternative groups or attempts for bilateral deals are insufficient measures to address climate change. “The multilateral process is…cumbersome and necessarily a slow process…but absolutely indispensable,” she said in an interview with Reuters.

On October 14, the Gates Foundation announced that it will direct more grants to help small farmers adapt to climate change. The foundation has already donated $1.5 billion to agriculture in developing countries; however, most of that investment supported conventional farming practices. In a speech during the World Food Prize meeting, Jeff Raikes, chief executive of the foundation, said new biotechnology approaches of seed breeding will help small farmers confront drought, flooding, disease and pests more effectively. Raikes pointed to a recent project in Malawi where farmers now use corn capable of withstanding extreme weather events. “We’ve known for years that farmers were going to have to contend with harsher weather, but now we’re getting a clearer idea of the scale and scope of the crisis,” Raikes said.

On October 13, shareholders of Occidental Petroleum, Valero Energy Corporation and Tesoro Corporation announced that they filed resolutions that would challenge the three energy companies’ recent financial contributions toward California Proposition 23. Valero, Tesoro and Occidental spent $4 million, $1.5 million and $300,000 respectively to support the ballot initiative that aims to suspend California’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. The shareholders said they are concerned with the effects of climate change, calling its impacts a “serious threat to our planet and economy.” Larisa Ruoff, Director of Shareholder Advocacy for Green Century Capital Management, which filed the shareholder proposal at Occidental, said investors are also “concerned that Prop 23 will remove important market signals necessary to transition to cleaner business practices.”

On October 13, NATO countries met to discuss future environmental security issues in the Arctic Ocean. Melting sea ice due to global warming has raised the possibility of increased access to valuable natural resources in the Arctic region. Military officials fear that climate change may lead to conflict in the region as a race for resources unfolds. NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. Admiral James G. Stavridis said, “The cascading interests and broad implications stemming from the effects of climate change should cause today’s global leaders to take stock, and unify their efforts to ensure the Arctic remains a zone of co-operation – rather than proceed down the icy slope towards a zone of competition, or worse a zone of conflict.” On September 30, the Royal United Service Institute published a study saying that diminishing ice in the North Pole is causing new global interests within the region to grow. As a result, major Arctic powers like the United States and Russia are increasingly asserting their presence in the region.

On October 8, Japan’s government renewed its commitment to pass climate legislation, which includes an emissions trading system and an environmental tax to stimulate renewable energy deployment. Japan aims to have renewable energy constitute 10 percent of its total energy supply by 2020 and reduce its carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he will focus on passing the bill before December 3, so that the new provisions take effect in the next fiscal year. It is unclear whether the bill will pass because opposing parties may be able to block the legislation. The same bill stalled earlier this year after parliament failed to reach a consensus. Japan is the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

On October 6, Nature published a study showing that contrary to current beliefs, the sun warms the Earth the most at the dimmest point of its 11-year solar cycle. Lead researcher Dr. Joanna Haigh analyzed daily sunlight measurements from 2004 to 2007 and found that the amount of light reaching the Earth’s surface increased while the solar activity declined. “If further studies find the same pattern over a longer period of time, [then] we may have overestimated the sun’s role in warming the planet,” Dr. Haigh said. Some scientists believe that during phases of lower solar activity, unusual patterns in air currents that cause very cold weather occur more frequently. The results may help explain why Europe has recently experienced very cold winters as global temperatures are rising. Scientists maintain that unlike man-made warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the variations in temperature due to solar activity are cyclic and should not have any lasting impact on global temperatures.

On October 12, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study on the implications of demographic change for global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) during the next century. Lead researcher Brian C. O’Neill and his team used an energy-economic growth model that took into account many demographic variables such as an aging population and further urbanization. The study concluded that slowing population growth may be one of the most effective methods of reducing CO2 emissions. O’Neill showed that slowing population growth may result in up to 29 percent of the emissions reductions necessary by 2050 to avoid harmful climate change. The study also showed that an aging population in the next 90 years may reduce emissions 20 percent. In contrast, further urbanization may increase emissions 25 percent.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the Nordic Council invite you to a briefing examining how and why Nordic countries have achieved global leadership in low-carbon technologies and strengthened their economic competitiveness. The oil crises of the 1970s spurred the Nordic countries to invest heavily in energy efficiency – including combined heat and power/district heating and energy efficient buildings – and renewable energy including wind power, hydropower, geothermal, waste-to-energy, and biofuels. In the decades since, these countries have broken the direct relationship between economic growth and energy consumption, and emerged as global leaders in clean energy exports. Speakers representing industry and government from Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, and Norway will discuss their nations’ experiences developing low-carbon economies, and potential lessons for American policymakers. This briefing will be held on Thursday, October 21, 2010 from 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. in the HVC 215 Capitol Visitor Center. This briefing is free and open to the public and a light breakfast will be served. RSVP to Laura Parsons at lparsons [at] eesi.org or (202) 662-1884.

Writers: Nicholas Mostovych

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The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) is a non-profit organization founded in 1984 by a bipartisan Congressional caucus dedicated to finding innovative environmental and energy solutions. EESI works to protect the climate and ensure a healthy, secure, and sustainable future for America through policymaker education, coalition building, and policy development in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy, agriculture, forestry, transportation, buildings, and urban planning.

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“That Valero and the other companies are using company money for such overt political purposes is both inappropriate and reflects poor governance. Beyond stifling California’s fast-growing clean tech economy, rolling back this law will delay the nation’s much needed transition to a clean energy economy and greater energy independence.”

-Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and Director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, said concerning oil company’s backing of California’s controversial Proposition 23, which would suspend California’s landmark global warming law.